Rafael Nadal finishes the revolution with Roger Federer win

Tennis has entered the neo-Rafaelite age. It should be marked with a sculpture
in bronze featuring Nadal galloping along the baseline at full tilt with his
racket wrapped around the ball.

Champion: Rafa Nadal once again proves himself to be the world No 1Photo: REUTERS

By Kevin Garside in Melbourne

10:52PM GMT 01 Feb 2009

The vanquished Roger Federer will have to sleep with the lights on over the coming nights to keep that hellish vision at bay.

For the third successive final in which Nadal has opposed him Federer has ended up listless in a courtside chair staring at the floor with his head in his hands. Had there been a genie in the house Federer's first wish would have been for the floor to open and swallow him boots and all.

"You are disappointed, shocked and sad then it overwhelms you. You can't go to the locker-room and take a cold shower. You are stuck out there. It is tough," Federer said explaining the distress that forced him to abort in tears his first-attempt at the loser's address.

The question no longer centres on Federer and the number 14 but how many grand slam titles Nadal might claim. His win in Melbourne is major number six. The words lost and cause do not feature in his vocabulary.

It is absurd to dismiss the possibility of Federer reaching the Pete Sampras standard. At 27 his work is far from done. The point is Nadal is five years Federer's junior. As long as the muscles hold up, history is his to make.

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Romantic thoughts switch immediately to the calendar grand slam. Only two, Don Budge and Rod Laver, have pulled off that little stunt. Nadal has now planted the Majorcan flag an all surfaces. The French is next, where Nadal has not lost since 2004. Of his three final victories over Federer in the past 12 months Roland Garros was the most emphatic.

Pre-match concerns about his fitness after his five-set semi-final against Fernando Verdasco proved baseless. This boy could push a heavy roller uphill. Federer, to his credit, did not fall for the fitness dummy. He did, however, fall for almost everything else.

He was unusually subdued, fitfully groping for his best form. He found it only episodically. Nadal did not reach the peaks of Wimbledon, or Friday night for that matter. He didn't have to. He was the more consistent. That was the difference.

It is an uncomfortable thought for a man with 13 major championship victories to consider, yet the evidence suggests that Federer is Rafa's bunny. He has beaten Nadal in only six of their 19 meetings. The traffic has been all one way, Nadal's, in the past five.

There was sympathy and respect for Federer. His attempt to draw level with Pistol Pete was the championship's principal narrative. Even Rafa was dialled in to that. "Roger is the greatest player I have ever seen. This was tough for him. He's a great champion."

The Australian storyline carried added meaning for Federer since it was here in 2004 that his first Australian Open took him to no.1 in the world. Against anybody else that is how he looks. The 600,000-plus Melburnians who watched across the fortnight, were blowing him across the line. His tears at the end were in part recognition of that. Federer was, as ever, a giant in defeat, acknowledging the supremacy of the better man.

Tennis cannot miss with these two. Interest in Federer is hardly going to diminish. He has never won in Paris. What a 14th parade that would be. Wimbledon, where it all started for him in 2003 and where Sampras secured the greater part of his swag, offers seductive symmetry.

The experts will debate the state of Federer's game. The talk will inevitably revisit the idea that he is in the early stages of decline. There is a case to be made when Nadal is on court. Put anybody else before him in grand slam trim and weight drains from the argument. Juan Martin del Potro and Andy Roddick, his victims in the last eight and semi-final here, would not have tested him had they played together. And they are ranked in the world's top ten.

Styles make fights. Nadal will not want to run into Verdasco on a dark night in Paris, for example. Jim Courier described their semi-final as a 'once in 20-years match'. Nadal prevailed in the requisite manner, flinging his racket at anything that moved. The majority of women in the audience and a good number of men would gladly stand in for the ball.

A poster with the words "Marry me, Rafa" written in English on one side and Spanish on the other, was a feature of the stadium furniture. There were others that boiled down to the same thing. Sex sells. None proposed to Roger. He does not evince that kind of response. Rafa dances the tango while Roger watches from the bar.

Nadal's appeal is the greater for the substance that underpins it. He shares with Federer a champion's grace. Authenticity is re-inforced by genuine modesty. He took the trophy out of the hands of Laver, the player his uncle Tony keeps reminding him is the greatest of them all because of the two calendar grand slams he won.

The question came Nadal's way in the post match de brief. "I didn't know if I could win one championship. When that happened I did not know if there would be another. Now I have six. And, now, one on hard court. I will try my hardest to win more, but I can't say that I will. No-one knows."

We might soon. A tented village is probably sprouting along the Avenue Gordon Bennett in Auteil as the clamour for tickets to Roland Garros begins to build. It's not the end for Federer. Our own Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have aspirations of their own. But for now the moment is Nadal's.